The present invention relates to apparatus for separating sheet material as well as methods for separating sheet material.
Generic devices for separating sheet material on the one hand include a sheet material pick-up which is configured to pick up a single sheet material piece from a sheet material stack which comprises several sheet material pieces, and on the other hand an actuator which is configured to shift the sheet material pick-up. The actuator for example puts the sheet material pick-up into a particular movement, so that the sheet material pick-up for example can withdraw the uppermost sheet material piece or the bottommost sheet material piece of a sheet material stack from the sheet material stack.
Such device for separating sheet material is described for example in WO 2014/005715 A1. The sheet material pick-up is configured there in the manner of an oscillating conveyor belt with which single sheet material pieces can be removed from a sheet material stack.
The sheet material for example can be paper sheets, cardboard sheets, coupons, for example banknotes, bills, checks or the like.
In systems which process such sheet material, for example coupons, use occasionally is made of an image acquisition unit which captures an image of a surface of a sheet material piece and provides corresponding image data. An evaluation unit downstream of the image acquisition unit provides an evaluation result in dependence on the evaluation of the image data, wherein the system continues to process the processing of the sheet material pieces in dependence on this evaluation result. Such approach for example is known from DE 10 2011 000 783 A1. By means of the image acquisition unit and the evaluation unit an authenticity check of the coupon is made.